Philosophy & Ethics

Steven Pinker has written a long essay in The New Republic embracing scientism. That's really too bad, because this way Pinker joins a disturbingly long list of scientists (and a few philosophers)…

As is well known to readers of this blog, I do not have much sympathy for philosophers like Alvin Plantinga. That’s not because the guy’s not smart (he certainly is), nor because he hasn’t published…

How would editors at National Review regard the credibility of a controlled market publication that had its economic policy articles written by astrologers using the stars as their evidence? They…

Time to reconsider the relationship between science and the supernatural. A number of colleagues in both science and philosophy argue that the supernatural is nothing special, that god-related…

Testing a new therapeutic intervention such as a drug or surgical procedure on human subjects is not an option so the vast majority are first tested on animals and only when they have been…

Back in 1992, Francis Fukuyama famously argued that the advent of Western liberal democracy spelled nothing less than the endpoint of sociocultural evolution: we have finally discovered the best way…

By now everyone is familiar with some of the more controversial topics in policy discussions featuring scientific topics, so that GMO foods or climate change are readily recognized as "hot button"…

I have wanted to comment for some time about a number of available “theories of truth.” The occasion has now been presented by the fact that I am writing the fourth chapter of my new book (on whether…

I have been doing public outreach for science since I originally moved to Tennessee in 1996. It has been a fun ride, and I’m sure it will continue to be that way for many years to come. But two of…

Laws and Flaws The roots of miscarriages of justice.   Although this article is about the common law, the author hopes that it may be of more than passing interest to scientists and to all…